Etymograph

English

Eostre

Eostre comes from Old English Ēostre ‘the goddess Easter’.

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150Ēostre‘the goddess Easter’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1922Eostre

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150Ēostre‘the goddess Easter’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1922Eostre

Earliest quotation: 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals: “There were also Nature deities, Hrede, the personification of…”

A compound of Ēastre ‘a word referring to "the rising dawn" to…’ + ēastre ‘Easter’

Proto-Indo-European *h₂ews- ‘dawn’

Proto-Germanic *Austrǭ

Proto-West Germanic *Austrā

Old English ēastre ‘Easter’

The story

A learned borrowing from Old English Ēostre, the Northumbrian variant of West Saxon Ēastre (‘a word referring to "the rising dawn" to indicate the season of Spring’) and ēastre (‘Easter’), from Proto-West Germanic *Austrā, from Proto-Germanic *Austrǭ (‘Easter, springtime’).

Every English word from Old English Ēostre

Today it means

name A hypothesised West Germanic goddess, supposedly of the spring season, but of uncertain provenance.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Old English Ēostre / Eostre

Shirt and support for this word